Street dancing is one of the main features of Sandugo Festival, one of the festivals in the Philippines held annually in the province of Bohol. The festival is visited by both domestic and foreign tourists.

When there is dancing in the streets, there is not much people can do. If you don't agree with that, try getting caught out in the street in Tagbilaran City, Bohol.

The annual street-dancing festival is slowly but surely becoming a part of our life that we have started to consider it a given. While July has been declared Sandugo month, people hardly notice until the street-dancing extravaganza.

It has a lot to do with the difficult times. And yet, there are those who believe that familiarity has a way of taking away the luster. If what they say about familiarity breeding contempt is true, you got yourself the reason for it.

Perhaps we miss the forest for the trees. In this case, we miss the significance of the Sandugo because we get carried away by the street-dancing. How ironic that the very activity that is supposed to be a reminder is the one that makes us forget.

If there is one word that could sum up the blood compact between Sikatuna and Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, it should be friendship.

Of course, there is no way to restrain people's creativity. People see it differently so we leave them at that less we get lost in the process.

Most people make friends because they have a need they want met. Somehow, Legazpi falls into this category. Other people make friends because they are in a position to meet someone else's need. That would include Sikatuna.

Over the years, there are those who felt that Legazpi got more than what he needed and that Sikatuna gave much more than what he could give. This would be speculative, depending on how fertile one's mind can get.

Still, we cannot miss the point that the two men struck a friendship that has defied not only time but convention. It has in fact become a symbol of cross-cultural inter-action and even international peace.

An enduring legacy was perhaps the last thing on the minds of both men that fateful moment. In fact, both were probably aware that there was nothing much to it except the thirst that Legazpi and his men sought to satisfy.

There is nothing trivial about friendship though. It covers a whole spectrum of possibilities from the trivial to the final. It is so complex that a person's attitude to friendship can define his character and his personality.

A person who befriends another for the favors he can get out of it is no friend. On the other hand, a friend who gives without expecting anything in return is one worth keeping for many lifetimes.

Ecclesiastes describes a faithful friend as a medicine of life. With very few real friends around, we should not wonder why there is no healing in this world.

Sandugo Street Dancing, a part of Filipino culture, can be found only in Philippines. This festival in Bohol has its roots to the historical blood compact made by a Spanish sojourner and a Boholano chieftain 500 years ago http://onlyinphilippines.blogspot.com/.